D Haoxi (Simon) Wang - Oshawa Generals, OHL (2025 Draft)

[TheGreenTBer]

He's a big riser for many of these men.

speak for yourself

 

[Coaches Coroner]

I’ve never seen him play, only looked at his stat line.

If this guy was named Brett Sullivan and he was born and raised in Thunder Bay, would he be ranked in the first round?

Genuinely curious

Edit: he plays junior B in Ontario and has played 8 games in the O with zero points. What’s the deal?

If his name was Brad Smith and you'd never seen him play, you probably wouldn't be questioning it this much.

 

[Bjorn Le]

The fact that he is Chinese-born is the root of 90% of the criticism in this thread. He is a legit prospect. Overrated because of his size and athleticism as compared to his skill, perhaps. But if he was a white Canadian/American in the exact same situation, he wouldn't receive a tenth of the criticism that he has here.

 

[LeProspector]

The fact that he is Chinese-born is the root of 90% of the criticism in this thread. He is a legit prospect. Overrated because of his size and athleticism as compared to his skill, perhaps. But if he was a white Canadian/American in the exact same situation, he wouldn't receive a tenth of the criticism that he has here.

I think he’s receiving criticism because of the bolded.

This prospect should not be in first round contention. It’s as simple as that.

 

[Hinterland]

I think he’s receiving criticism because of the bolded.

This prospect should not be in first round contention. It’s as simple as that.

Did someone criticize the prospect?

I don't. Most users seem to agree he's an interesting project. Most of the discussion, at least initially, was around whether he's worth a 1st round pick or not. My personal opinion is no. I wouldn't pick a player top~64 (depending on the quality of the draft) who isn't even good enough to play major junior in his draft season.

If you wanna get drafted into the NHL you usually have to not just play but also dominate in major junior. So I'm finding it hard to believe that Wang is gonna be a 1st rounder. Maybe some teams see him as a potential PR stunt? If he does work out I'd imagine it would be a huge opportunity to grow your brand in the Chinese market. I do see the upside but taking into consideration where he's right now he's otherwise definitely more of a late round pick in my book. I can see why teams would wanna pick him a bit earlier but not in round 1. I think that would be a mistake. I think there's a chance he can become an NHL player but he's more likely to bust. While that goes for most of the kids available he's also far behind most of these kids in terms of skills and it's gonna be an uphill climb for him if he wants to be more than a stay at home 6th/7th defenseman kinda guy. If he makes it to the NHL, which is unlikely to begin with, I think he's still unlikely to log big minutes. In the earlier rounds of the draft I think you wanna try to get a slice of the elite skill available, find yourself some potential top4 defensemen, top6 forwards.

 

[yessir29292]

who isn't even good enough to play major junior in his draft season.

Not good enough for major junior? Gens worked for months to get this kid in a jersey and they are a top team in the CHL with a 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounder already on their back end

 

[PlayersLtd]

The fact that he is Chinese-born is the root of 90% of the criticism in this thread. He is a legit prospect. Overrated because of his size and athleticism as compared to his skill, perhaps. But if he was a white Canadian/American in the exact same situation, he wouldn't receive a tenth of the criticism that he has here.

I recall Gabriel Eliasson receiving criticism from the same angle when taken in the second round this year.

I don't think it's a racial thing. I think there's a form of hockey gatekeeping where people want to believe that unicorn traits aren't enough to make it. We want our prospects well rounded and dynamic because we want to believe that the sport is too complex to be mastered by singular traits.

 

[HighLifeManIsHigh]

If his name was Brad Smith and you'd never seen him play, you probably wouldn't be questioning it this much.

Oh god.

Yes, I would be questioning why a guy that’s mostly playing jun B in Ontario is ranked in the first round. He isn’t even a regular in the OHL

 

[Hinterland]

Not good enough for major junior? Gens worked for months to get this kid in a jersey and they are a top team in the CHL with a 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounder already on their back end

All of that is true but it's also true that he sucks. He's struggling. He might be of use to them next season but right now he is not. They're playing him in order to develop him, not because he's good enough. That's why he's most certainly gonna get scratched during playoffs.

 

[JadedRandom]

Cool but not unique. Radim Mrtka is 6'6/216lbs and he can make plays as well, is almost PPG on a bad team.

Size is a plus but not particularly helpful if you can't handle/control/play the puck.

Mrtka is a much, much better prospect than Wang because his all-around skills are much more developed right now, and his hockey sense is currently magnitudes better than the latter's.

I'd have Mrtka as a first-round prospect, and Wang as basically DND until the fourth-round because I really don't like Wang's core skills as a hockey player.

But Haoxi Wang's quite a bit better at skating for the same frame as Mrtka (better acceleration, straight-line speed, edges, agility, pivots, backwards skating, you name it), has slightly better conditioning from what I've seen, and is also more physical/stronger from my viewings than Mrtka.

Don't get me wrong, Mrtka is also very, very impressive on that front overall. But Wang is just another level higher if we take only physical potential into consideration, a true-blue "elite athlete" if you will.

Suffice to say, at some point in the draft some teams will start leveraging the pros and cons of selecting Haoxi Wang vs. other players.

Ultimately, I figure that a team with multiple picks and/or a strong prospect pool will be willing to live with the risk of Wang just not managing to improve his skills to an NHL level, ending up as an AHL/NHL tweener, and just bet on Wang's raw physical potential.

Said team will need to put a proper development plan in place for Wang, but will also need much patience as Wang is VERY raw as a prospect and will likely need multiple years post-draft to "make it" even in the best-case scenario for him.

 

[Coaches Coroner]

Oh god.

Yes, I would be questioning why a guy that’s mostly playing jun B in Ontario is ranked in the first round. He isn’t even a regular in the OHL

I guess we'll agree to disagree about it.

 

[Coaches Coroner]

The fact that he is Chinese-born is the root of 90% of the criticism in this thread. He is a legit prospect. Overrated because of his size and athleticism as compared to his skill, perhaps. But if he was a white Canadian/American in the exact same situation, he wouldn't receive a tenth of the criticism that he has here.

It's kind of ironic that the people complaining about him being rated highly 'because of his name', admit they haven't seen him play, and are giving him extra negative attention because of that very thing. Seems like projection.

 

[Vikz]

But if he was a white Canadian/American in the exact same situation, he wouldn't receive a tenth of the criticism that he has here.

Sure he wouldn't. But not because people hate Chinese. Because this is some half-assed marketing campaign by the NHL in an attempt to attract Chinese audience and break into Chinese market. He wont be the next Yao Ming and China does not care about hockey, yet someone will waste a high pick on a player who will probably not end up even playing pro hockey.

 

[Albatros]

Sure he wouldn't. But not because people hate Chinese. Because this is some half-assed marketing campaign by the NHL in an attempt to attract Chinese audience and break into Chinese market. He wont be the next Yao Ming and China does not care about hockey, yet someone will waste a high pick on a player who will probably not end up even playing pro hockey.

I wouldn't take him #31 to be sure, but taking an Ozzy Wiesblatt or Ryan Johnson or Alexander Alexeyev instead hardly makes a difference in terms of wasting a pick. There hasn't been a very good 31st overall pick since Jacob Markström back in 2008, and even his value to the team that drafted him was mainly getting traded for Roberto Luongo.

 

[bigdog16]

I wouldn't take him #31 to be sure, but taking an Ozzy Wiesblatt or Ryan Johnson or Alexander Alexeyev instead hardly makes a difference in terms of wasting a pick. There hasn't been a very good 31st overall pick since Jacob Markström back in 2008, and even his value to the team that drafted him was mainly getting traded for Roberto Luongo.

Three guys who all have NHL games under them by the time they were 22 years old.

Wang will likely age out of Jrs and go to college at 21, and be nowhere near professional hockey by the time he is 22. He is so far behind everyone else at this point he would need to see exponential growth to even become an ECHL player.

 

[Albatros]

Three guys who all have NHL games under them by the time they were 22 years old.

So? You can hire a free agent from Europe and get at least the same value.

 

[bigdog16]

So? You can hire a free agent from Europe and get at least the same value.

You can get a 22 year old in Europe and plug him into NHL games? No you can't

 

[Albatros]

You can get a 22 year old in Europe and plug him into NHL games? No you can't

I fail to see why your plug would need to be 22. Your AHL team will want enough players that are in development or veteran exempt (under 25 yo & 320 pro games), but that's pretty much all value there's to it.

 

[MeHateHe]

Some of you guys act like you’ve never heard the term “project.” Big kids with decent skating get drafted higher. Hell, Zdeno Chara couldn’t skate and he got drafted in the third round. Sounds like this kid has good drive, so some scouts think they could turn him into something. Maybe he becomes a pro player, or maybe not, but that’s what projects are.

 

[Briser la glace]

Does he deserve to be drafted in the first round?
Probably not, unless he shows tremendous improvement until Draft day. He's a high-risk prospect and a long-term project, we all agree on that.

Will he be drafted in the first round?
Maybe. I actually think chances are pretty good, and it's not a question of nationality.

We saw how early guys like Létourneau and Eliasson got drafted last year. It's the same every year. Many NHL teams want their unicorn. Wang is even more raw than these guys, but this seems to be a weaker draft class after the top ~20, let's not forget it. And I personnally believe the upside is much more interesting with Wang than it was with Létourneau and Eliasson.

Wang's polarizing, but you only need ONE team that really likes him and he gets drafted early. He's 31st on McKenzie's list, with the quote : "He (Wang) checks in at No. 31, with one scout ranking him as high as No. 18 and one not ranking him at all in the top 64". So some NHL scouts do really like him, wether we like it or not. And others don't, which is totally fair.

I could see a non-rebuilding team with a fairly weak prospect pool take a swing on Wang at 29-32 instead of drafting a low-ceiling bottom-6 forward at the end of the first round (although teams like VGK and FLA don't have their 1st round pick anymore). Some teams won't care that it might take 5-6 years before he MAYBE takes a first step on an NHL ice; he has tools that are very hard to find.

It's also a possibility that the teams that like him won't even be drafting in that range and he ends up in the 3rd round.

 

[BKarchitect]

I just want one team to pick both Wang and Mooney so we get a post-draft photo op and eventual rookie camp hilarity.

 

[Hinterland]

Some of you guys act like you’ve never heard the term “project.” Big kids with decent skating get drafted higher. Hell, Zdeno Chara couldn’t skate and he got drafted in the third round. Sounds like this kid has good drive, so some scouts think they could turn him into something. Maybe he becomes a pro player, or maybe not, but that’s what projects are.

I don't disagree with any of this. I'm just not sure if a project unable to hold his own in the OHL is necessarily a 1st or 2nd round pick. How many fringe CHLers went top64 in an NHL draft? I don't think it ever happened. If you're a fringe CHLer during your draft season you can totally still make it to the NHL. I'm not sure you can still become a top4 defenseman or a top6 forward though...especially if you're lacking elite skill the way Wang does. I think in the first two rounds teams are mainly looking for elite talent. Players with top4/top6 upside. Of course the further down the draft the less likely you're to actually hit but teams are looking for elite skill first. At the moment, skillwise, Wang is far behind everybody else and I don't think you should just assume that he's not only gonna catch up but also overtake most of the other kids.

So yeah. I agree he's an interesting project but he's clearly way too green to go early in the draft. Some team might do it as a PR stunt for business reasons but it would most certainly be a bad pick from a hockey point of view.

I'm also not sure you're necessarily helping this kid by drafting him this early in an NHL draft. That would put a ton of pressure on a kid struggling in the OHL. 1st/2nd rounders are expected to dominate their D+1 season in major juniors. As a top prospect, if you don't perform in your D+1 season you're gonna get a ton of heat, especially if you got drafted into certain markets.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I don't disagree with any of this. I'm just not sure if a project unable to hold his own in the OHL is necessarily a 1st or 2nd round pick. How many fringe CHLers went top64 in an NHL draft? I don't think it ever happened. If you're a fringe CHLer during your draft season you can totally still make it to the NHL. I'm not sure you can still become a top4 defenseman or a top6 forward though...

Devon Toews? By age, he's only a month younger than Griffin Reinhart, another WHL region Canadian Defenseman, the 4th overall pick in the 2012 Draft. Meaning D. Toews was eligible and passed over in both the 2012 and 2013 Drafts. He wasn't selected in the WHL Bantam Draft a few years prior to that.

Complicated to say since up until this season, a player had to consciously choose a "path", so an undrafted kid in a major junior league would often retain their NCAA eligibility and not try and chase a fringe roster spot on a CHL team. D. Toews was a BCHL All-Rookie Team in 2011-12. A few BCHL players were picked in the NHL Draft that year (highest going first pick in the 3rd round - Jujar Khaira). Would D. Toews have been good enough to stick in a WHL lineup that particular year? Who knows.

Less notable, Matt Roy, a 7th round pick in his third go-around after an NCAA freshman season, would have been first time draft eligible by age a year after D. Toews in 2013. Looks like he was playing U18 AAA in Michigan that season, and then supplemented it with 10 USHL games at the end of the year. Was he good enough to stick in an OHL lineup at that point? Dunno.

But anyways, NHL history is filled with a lot of good top 4 defensemen that wouldn't have been particularly well regarded in their age 17 season and considered longshots to make the NHL strictly at that point. DMen have a long development curve in general

 

[Hinterland]

Does he deserve to be drafted in the first round?
Probably not, unless he shows tremendous improvement until Draft day. He's a high-risk prospect and a long-term project, we all agree on that.

Will he be drafted in the first round?
Maybe. I actually think chances are pretty good, and it's not a question of nationality.

We saw how early guys like Létourneau and Eliasson got drafted last year. It's the same every year. Many NHL teams want their unicorn. Wang is even more raw than these guys, but this seems to be a weaker draft class after the top ~20, let's not forget it. And I personnally believe the upside is much more interesting with Wang than it was with Létourneau and Eliasson.

Wang's polarizing, but you only need ONE team that really likes him and he gets drafted early. He's 31st on McKenzie's list, with the quote : "He (Wang) checks in at No. 31, with one scout ranking him as high as No. 18 and one not ranking him at all in the top 64". So some NHL scouts do really like him, wether we like it or not. And others don't, which is totally fair.

I could see a non-rebuilding team with a fairly weak prospect pool take a swing on Wang at 29-32 instead of drafting a low-ceiling bottom-6 forward at the end of the first round (although teams like VGK and FLA don't have their 1st round pick anymore). Some teams won't care that it might take 5-6 years before he MAYBE takes a first step on an NHL ice; he has tools that are very hard to find.

It's also a possibility that the teams that like him won't even be drafting in that range and he ends up in the 3rd round.

The thing is...Wang has a low ceiling himself. Skill is the most crucial factor when it comes to ceiling. Wang is big and can skate like the wind but that alone doesn't make him a high ceiling prospect. If you wanna play big minutes in the NHL, skill is the one thing you gotta have. You don't necessarily need to have elite vision or be an elite skater. But if you wanna play top4/top6 on a consistent basis then you need skill. You need to be able to handle the puck, make plays. Whether you're a forward or a defenseman, you gotta be able to play with the puck. If plays are dying on your stick, if you keep on throwing pucks away then you're not a top4/top6 player. Skill is the area where Wang is far behind everybody else and I don't know why we're just assuming that he's gonna overtake everybody. I think at this point you'd be crazy to assume that his ceiling is high. Can he make it to the NHL? Not likely but he absolutely can. If he does, is he gonna play heavy minutes? I have zero reason to believe so.

I'm also not sure the draft is necessarily gonna be a weak one. For example, MacKenzie has Bill Zonnon listed in the 2nd round. Incredibly green and one heck of a project as well but despite that sitting 3rd in QMJHL scoring. Big, physical two way Center loaded with skill. That's what a high ceiling project looks like.

 

[MeHateHe]

I don't disagree with any of this. I'm just not sure if a project unable to hold his own in the OHL is necessarily a 1st or 2nd round pick. How many fringe CHLers went top64 in an NHL draft? I don't think it ever happened.

Dean Letourneau went #25 last year. In his D+1 year, he's not exactly setting the world on fire at BU. It's not a good comparable, but this draft year is probably weaker than last. Projects get drafted, some higher than others.